comes marching home
by Icejj
Summary: Thunderclan goes into battle.


**EDIT:** Thank you to the kind reviewers who pointed out the problem with the formatting. C/C from AO3 should never be done in a hurry.

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Bramblestorm opened her eyes.

The clan was waiting for them. Their skinny bodies were gathered together around the edges of the hollow, looking like ribs and hard angles held together by sinews. Their fur was matted, their ears flattened, and their eyes shone with hunger.

"Thunderclan!" yowled their leader, and every cat looked up at her with their too-bright eyes, came to press themselves against the high ledge. Redstar's voice rang clear in the stone hollow, amplified by the walls of smooth stone. "For the past three dawns, your medicine cat has sighted snowdrops on the ground before our camp. These flowers are an omen from Starclan that warm days are ahead. Newleaf is come!"

Newleaf is come! The promise rippled across the clan like a warm breeze and some hooted in joy. Little snowdrops had pierced the frozen earth at the entrance of their home. Soon, more flowers would grow: yellow cowslips and big daffodils and golden forsythias. Leaves would bloom in the trees and then the migrating birds would come back. The clan cats would eat, eat, eat till they could swallow no more. Soon.

"The snowdrops," repeated Redstar, "are a blessing from the ancient ones. Thunderclan must acknowledge this and act upon the chance offered by Starclan, for blessings may be bestowed once, but they are only repeated for the truly deserving!"

Bramblestorm unsheathed her claws. She pressed the honed tips against the frozen earth at her paws, feeling—steadier, perhaps—steadier than a leaf battered between the claws of kits. She couldn't focus. Her mind was pulled to many places: the open jaws of her clanmates, the overwhelming smell of their excitement, the small grey cleft at the foot of the high ledge, Oakheart's striped tail, Redstar's bright fur. There was acid bile at the back of her throat and she swallowed in one go, clenching her jaws. A warrior could not appear distracted or unfocused before her clan. It would shame her as it would shame them.

"Thunderclan, behold the brave warriors assembled before you. Tonight, at dusk, they will fight the Skyclan thieves who have starved us in our time of greatest need, and reclaim our ancestral land. Never again will Thunderclan starve in Leafbare! Never again will our elders cough away their days for lack of catnip! Never again will our promising apprentices shrivel under our eyes!"

Bramblestorm hadn't gone too hungry, during her first Leafbare, because her mother had made sure they had enough food. There was a secret hunting spot outside the clan borders that she brought Bramblestorm and her sister to, and there she would make them eat, keeping watch while they gobbled down skinny mice.

"We will reclaim our honor, and restore the honor of our ancestors!"

Bramblestorm yowled in approval, and the patrol of chosen warriors yowled, and the clan roared around them. Their clanmates' bodies were pressed up against theirs, breaths misting over their scruffs, screams ringing in their ears. Yes, the clan hungered—for prey, for warmth, and for blood.

"Oakheart!" The big deputy came forward, his tail held straight. "Lionclaw. Thornfur." Oakheart's brothers came to stand before the high ledge, looking proud and magnificent as the warriors of old, and solemnly dipped their heads to their leader, crouching low. "Orchidpelt." A grey queen, her shoulders and flanks striped with scars. "Bramblestorm." She was almost startled—almost—but hurried forward. "Briaflower." Her sister. "Elmclaw. Blackclaw." Two young warriors.

The cats already knew they had been selected for the battle. Redstar and Oakheart had talked to them individually the previous night, murmuring in low voices about service and sacrifice. The clan already knew as well. They had watched their leader and deputy walk among the shadows of the hollow and pick warriors out, long after the dawn patrols had returned and long after the apprentices had been sent to sleep. But the calling of their names before the assembled clan brought honor to the chosen ones.

"We shall speak your name with pride."

Their names would be murmured by awed apprentices and given to newborn kits. The warriors would live on in the clans' stories, and when their time came—and if their time came tonight—their names would be honored for generations.

"Let the elders now present you with the clan's catch, and may this catch give you the strength needed to gain victory over our enemies!"

As Redstar's voice echoed across the hollow, the elders came to stand before the fresh kill pile, bending to pick out the best morsels. The last time this ritual had been performed, Bramblestorm had been a tiny kit. The fresh kill pile was overflowing with Greenleaf prey, and big squirrels had been brought to the departing clanmates, one for each warrior. This time, only a few skiny corpses could be mustered for the patrol.

As the clan watched the elders, turning away from the warriors for one short moment, Briarflower came to Bramblestorm's side. She pushed her head under Bramblestorm's chin, and stayed there, purring softly, her small ears twitching. Bramblestorm slowly breathed her scent in.

Stumpytail came to the sisters, her greying muzzle clamped around a bony vole, and crouched low as she handed out the prey. "You better shred those fucking Skyclan thieves," she hissed. "Fuck them up so good they'll never leave their medicine cat's den."

"Yes, Stumpytail," whispered Briarflower.

They ate.

It was impossible for them to bite the vole at the same time, because the prey was so small they would butt heads, and so they took turns. Bramblestorm searched for the vole's little heart, wanting to taste some fresh blood, wanting to eat something other than stale and tough flesh. Her stomach was roiling with hunger, and her nose was full of the rich aroma of the vole, so that even after it was gone and she had swallowed its stringy tail, she could still smell it.

It was time to leave. The medicine cat came to them, and led them away from the assembled clan, through the brambles that garded the camp. Their clanmates watched them go in silence with their too-bright eyes. Even as she emerged from the shadows of the entrance tunnel, Bramblestorm could still feel them, like countless bees stinging her back.

There were snowdrops in the ground before the camp; even more so than the previous dawn and the dawn before that. Spottedcloud placed her tiny white paws before the tiny white flowers and murmured a prayer, calling to their ancestors in the sky. Bramblestorm wondered if their mother was listening. She thought of her, and many half-remembered details came to her mind at once: the times she would nip at them when picking out burrs, the sting of her rough pads on Bramblestorm's nose, her quiet purr, the way she constantly stretched her hind legs, tripping other cats, and Bramblestorm was overwhelmed. Briarflower pressed against her then, and lightly bit her neck, and Bramblestorm regained her focus.

A few pawsteps down, further away from the camp, lay a pile of berries and leaves that Spottedcloud had gathered for them. The warriors rolled in the herbs until their cat scent was masked with the pungent stench of crushed berries, closing their eyes and holding their breath. This way, Skyclan would not detect them before it was too late.

They walked, following Spottedcloud to the border. The midday sun bore down on their backs, pouring down the branches of the naked trees. But the light brought little warmth. It was one of those days, those clear days when not a cloud spotted the sky, when Bramblestorm's throat felt sore from the cold, when her tongue became raw and her pads stung as she walked.

Spottedcloud and Oakheart had selected the battleground together. It was close to the abandonned Twoleg nest that they would reclaim, close to the grounds where their ancestors had hunted and collected catnip. Thunderclan cats had not walked there for three generations, but the memory of the land remained, and Oakheart knew that there was a small clearing just inside the border claimed by Skyclan where hawthornes would provide cover. Spottedcloud had studied the trees around the area the previous night, and found an auspicious cluster of snowdrops.

The cats saw those flowers now, as thin and delicate as whiskers. They carefully parted around the plants as Spottedcloud blessed them; and then the medicine cat turned to the assembled warriors and studied each one of them in turn.

"May Starclan grant you victory," she murmured, and then padded away.

A few heartbeats went by like leaves quietly falling to the ground.

The deputy adressed them in a low voice. "We go into battle today knowing that our clan depends on us. We must show no mercy to our enemies, because they have shown no mercy to our elders and to our ancestors. There can be no failure. We must be brave."

Oakheart directed them to their positions in the undergrowth. And then began the long wait. Bramblestorm lay in a big tangle of hawthorne. Pale dapples played over her fur, across the ground. She tried batting at them, then forced herself to be still. A few tail-lengths away, her sister crouched in broken shadow, her unblinking eyes fixed on snowdrops.

As time went by, Bramblestorm's fear spiked and then dwindled away to nothing, and then she could feel only the numbness of the cold. The first pangs of hunger were clawing at her stomach when they scented the Skyclan patrol.

It was a little after dusk. There was no breeze. But the overwhelming stench of Skyclan piss flared up through the trees until the Thunderclan cats were chocking in the fumes. Bramblestorm dug her claws in the packed earth as all the terror she had felt earlier came back in a wave of nausea. It would not be long now. It would be all over soon.

A promise her sister had made in the morning came back to her. "Only 'till sunset, now," she had whispered as they lay in the warriors' den.

Suddenly a caterwaul tore through the air. The Skyclan patrol rushed through the hawthornes, chased by Thornfur and Orchidpelt and then Oakheart and Lionclaw and Elmclaw stood before the fleeing cats and then Bramblestorm knew it was her turn, it was her turn, it was her turn—

She lept forward and landed on a tufty brown queen, struggling to find purchase in her thick fur. They both fell onto their sides, their shoulders and haunches colliding painfully with hard earth, and then they were locked in a tussle, kicking out in a mutual effort to rake each other's bellies. But the Skyclan warrior had powerful haunches. Her hind legs pushed through Bramblestorm's defensive blocks. Sharp claws tore through her soft flesh. The pain was overwhelming. Bramblestorm yowled—tried to struggle out of the fighter's embrace—but the enemy warrior's front paws pressed around her sides—

Desperate, she snapped at the queen's throat, struggling to sink her fangs through the warrior's thick winter fur. Blood flooded her mouth. The brown cat snapped her head back. She rolled away. Bramblestorm struggled to her paws—

The enemy dragged her claws down Bramblestorm's chest. Bramblestorm raked her own across the enemy's ear. All of her training had been about bowling over opponents, pressing forward and never giving ground. Despite her torn stomach, she lurched closer to the queen and and raised her claws to her brown throat.

But the uninjured warrior was quicker.

She drew back. Lashed out.

Brambleclaw didn't immediately feel the pain as the Skyclan warrior's claws sunk into her left eye.


End file.
